The Presence of All
by thegirlfrommod4A
Summary: The three primary colors of light are green, blue, and red. When none are present, there is black. When all are present, and mixed equally, white light occurs. (Or, how Raleigh, Mako, and Chuck find their places in each others beds and lives.)
1. Prelude-Black

**So, I saw Pacific Rim for the first time the other day (tragic, I know,) and decided to write fanfic about it, because that's what I do with stuff I don't own. Honestly, this first chapter is the one I'm most hesitant about which is unusual for me. Anyways, hope you enjoy!**

It starts, in early 2020, with a void. With nothing. With the past shattered, the present a mess, and the future murky.

In 2020, Raleigh Becket has just watched his brother die. He has been dismissed from the Jaeger program, and has hooked up with those who follow the building of the new coastal wall, picking up shifts when he can. He avoids attachments, the only truly significant items left in his life the photographs that live at the bottom of his duffel since he never stays anywhere long enough to put them up.

In 2020, Chuck Hansen is in his second year at the Jaeger Academy, trying to live up to his father and trying to live down his uncle. He gets a dog since his childhood friend is gone, and works on making himself one of the cocky, brash rangers he idolized on the television screen.

In 2020, Mako Mori has just left Sydney, and the childhood friend she was already drifting apart from, for Hong Kong. She is preparing to enter the Jaeger Academy for pilot training, but has been studying Jaeger engineering for over a year already. In the closest she gets to teenage rebellion, she dyes the tips of her hair bright blue upon arrival.

In 2020, funding is already ebbing for the Jaeger program as politicians hoot and holler about the wall.

* * *

In 2025, the Jaeger program is scant inches from extinction, even as the coastal wall crumbles in Sydney.

In 2025 Mako Mori still hasn't used her pilot training, but she has put her engineering qualifications to work. She has mostly withdrawn from the world, though she interacts with fellow engineers and technicians, there is no one she can truly call a friend, a confidant. She is okay with this, she is devoted to the restoration for the time being, and to her revenge in the (relatively) long run.

In 2025, Chuck Hanson leaves home, (though it isn't really leaving home if your father, your dog, your boss, and your giant robot come too is it?) for Hong Kong because he doesn't know what he would do if he didn't. He doesn't consciously remember the person he grew up with, in more ways than one, until he sees her waiting for him, his father, his dog, and his boss as they step off the chopper. (The giant robot is already inside.)

In 2025, Raleigh Becket is dragged out of his stupor by a reinvigorated wish to die doing something exciting instead of from manual labor that he knows from personal experience is futile. He arrives at the Hong Kong shatterdome expecting to do that and nothing else.

It ends, in early 2025, with a rekindled light from years ago merging with two new ones to form something whole, something complete. Nature abhors a vacuum.


	2. Green

**OKAY! Now that we've bashed our way through that, we get to the story. I feel like this chapter runs more smoothly, I hope you do too. Timeline-wise, the first bit takes place in 2017, the second in 2020, and the third in 2025. Thanks to my reviewers, and remember, I still own none of the inspiration for this.**

When they were 14, Chuck and Mako were each other's first kiss. Two Shatterdome brats, raised by the greats, hoping for their own chances, they had grown up together traveling the world. It was difficult to make friends when you would be gone in 18 months (if that long), and even more difficult to form any relationships. But they had managed, at a school in Lima where they stayed for nearly a year, to meet some people, and one night went to a beach party. There was a bonfire, and food, and no small amount of smuggled alcohol, and Mako's bikini was a shockingly bright chartreuse. Chuck had been sitting off to the side with a beer, discussing the latest developments in Jaeger tech with some friends when Mako came over from dancing and pulled him up.

"We spend our lives in the dome," she said in lilting Spanish. "Take the night off."

He did. They swayed and moved, crushed in the heat of the night and other bodies, and when they came face to face for a moment he swallowed, hard.

"Can I kiss you?" he asked, the beer giving him a hint of the cockiness he would claim so easily later in life.

"Yes." she answered, and so he did.

His arms came around her waist and hers around his neck, and it felt good so they kept going, the palm fronds rustling above their heads.

* * *

When they were 17, Chuck and Mako lost their virginities to each other, because they were bored. They were not in a relationship, they had each kissed plenty of other people in the 3 years since their first, and the rift that would separate them for several long years had already started to form. He hung out with the older recruits, their arrogance rubbing off, making him brasher and louder as she moved the opposite way, withdrawing into her studies. She had yet to start pilot training, but was deep in the engineering curriculum.

They had been stuck in the Sydney Shatterdome for over a week, primitive tracking technology saying that there would be a category 3 kaiju coming sometime soon. Until then, precautions had to be taken, and since both Stacker Pentacost and Herc Hanson were overprotective, whether they admitted it or not, they insisted their kids stay in the Shatterdome, though many of the other trainees were spending the night out in town. So they sat in Chuck's room, watching a dumb movie that they'd both seen a hundred times before, throwing a tennis ball left there by Max back and forth and sipping gin tempered slightly by a lime Mako stole from the kitchen.

It might have been the alcohol, but it was probably the boredom since neither of them were really that drunk, but at some point Mako lifted herself out of the chair in the corner, plopped herself down next to Chuck on the bed, and kissed him. When they pulled back, he lifted his brows and she shrugged.

"You sure?" he questioned.

"Yeah."

They undressed carefully, a little awkwardly, and traced each other's bodies. Mako lay back on the bed, Chuck grabbed one of the condoms a third year trainee had given him as a gag gift, and he pushed in slowly.

He shifted his weight around a little, mostly stared at her breasts, moved back and forth, tried not to hurt her. She pushed her hips up to meet him, going by instinct for that, not sure where to put her arms, her legs, her gaze, let out a small squeak now and again if something felt good. His hips snapped faster after a little while, and when he was done, he rolled out of her, tossed the condom, and got back into the bed.

"Are you ok?" He asked, unsure.

She took stock.

"I have to pee." she admitted.

"Okay."

When she got back, she found a place under his arm and they watched what remained of the movie. He kissed her as they fell asleep, and then once more when they woke up for breakfast.

"You okay?" He asked again, pulling on an olive-colored tee as she got ready to go back to her room.

"I'm okay."

* * *

After that, the rift grew wider. Not because of the sex, or, at least not entirely, but because they no longer needed to know each other. He had his new group of friends, she had her books, and the general knowledge that she was Pentacost's daughter tended to keep her separate from the rest of the academy students. Then Mako and Pentacost were sent to Hong Kong while the Hansons stayed in Sydney, and it did not seem to be worth keeping in touch, especially since if they wanted to know they could ask their fathers. They didn't. By the time the Hansons arrived in Hong Kong, five years apart had been longer than 17 together. And then Raleigh Beckett arrived.

 _SO yeah. Reviews, very much including constructive criticism, are welcome._


	3. Blue

**Chapter 2, woot woot! Still don't own anything, hope you guys are enjoying the story and thanks again to those who have reviewed. This takes place (as does the next chapter) in 2025.  
**

She had never answered his question, Raleigh thought, rather bemused, as he followed her and Pentacost inside. It was fine though, she was different from what he expected too. When Pentacost had mentioned "his assistant, and the head technician on the Gipsy Danger reboot" would meet them in Hong Kong, he had been expecting some one older, someone more weathered. Not this slip of a woman, with fire in her eyes and hair the same color as his girl's lights. Looking back, he probably should have realized from the start, from that bright edge, that boldness, that take-no-prisoners stance and walk, that Mako would be another great love of his life.

* * *

It had been a mistake to battle him in the kwoon. Not just the point, but the entire fight had been a loss of control. But he had mocked her and neither she nor Pentacost could deal with an affront to pride. And oh, it had felt good to fight, to let all that pent up energy, all that anger and rage and control out on someone who could take it, take it and give it back and then look at her afterward with those sapphire eyes and tell her he felt something. Particularly when that someone was rather nice to look back at. Particularly when he wasn't afraid to look away first. The Kaidanovskys, she knew from their stories, had known they were drift compatible from the first prisoner they took down together. The Weis from the second they knew what drift compatibility was. Raleigh might have known from first fight, but she knew when he walked away from her door.

* * *

Bathed in the cobalt light of the dome, seeing Gipsy Danger's heart, he let her see his. All his pain, and fear, and sadness. She wantd to close the milimeter between their two hands, wanted to comfort him with human touch. The Drift, powerful as it was, had its limitations. Today, they had been on full display, sneaking into the weakness of the two pilots, all intentions washed away in a storm. But touch, that she could control. That, she had controlled in the kwoon and wanted to do again. But this was more intimate than that. A touch now would be a deliberate choice, with no pretense to surround it. And she was not quite ready for that. So she let them sink into a silence that was still, and deep, and if it was not quite perfect, well, what in the world was?

* * *

It was a dumb question really. "You okay?".

The had just destroyed the two fiercest kaijus ever to come through the breach. Five people, two jaegers were down. They were both battered and bruised, and when they got back to the dome they would have to face Pentacost, who was, by some esimations, far more terrifying than the reptilian monsters could even dream of being. So what could they do besides laugh?

"Yeah. You?"

* * *

The ocean was not supposed to be that flaming shade. It was supposed to be cerulean, or lapis, or the dark navy of Raleigh's favorite sweater, the one that used to be Yancy's. This was wrong, this was all wrong this was not how it was supposed to go. Simple, standard two-team formation, that had been the plan, Gipsy Danger covering Striker Eureka's back. Now, Gipsy's lights mocked them as Striker's changed, signaling the world falling apart. The breach, when Gipsy Danger fell, was indigo.

* * *

The ocean and the sky met, the first thing she saw when her pod opened up. Then the steel of Raleigh's popped to the surface, and she dove, paying the frigid waters no mind. Distantly, she registered the voices back at the dome, but she ignored those too, clutching desperately to the one thing she might, might have left. Then Raleigh spoke and the volume went back up on the world. But she could hear Max bark, just barely, amid the excitement, and she was picturing Hansen's face. She decided then and there, she would help him to tell Max that his master wasn't coming home.

And then. A third pod came to the surface, on the side opposite from where Mako's was still floating. They looked a each other. They dove.


	4. Red

**Okie Dokie guys. Last pairing and then the grand finale. Thanks for reading, thanks for your patience, and just remember I don't own this shiz.**

Raleigh wants to know if Chuck fucks like he fights. He's pissed about Chuck's comments regarding Mako, his shoulder is aching, and he wants to see what shade Chuck turns with Raleigh's dick in him. Wants to compare it to the flush that climbs over Chuck when he is angry. Wants to kiss Chuck until he bleeds, a brighter shade than the scrape on his cheek. Wants to check that the carpet matches the drapes, so to speak, when he goes down on Chuck. Wants (and the thought is sudden and a strange and right) to see the streaks Mako's nails leave behind when they scratch down Chuck's back. Herc's voice is a surprise.

* * *

Standing there looking up at the Marshall was when it really hit Chuck that he didn't want to die. He had Raleigh next to him, already in a drivesuit. Raleigh who had saved his ass after all, and kicked it besides. Raleigh, who was stronger that Chuck had realized and soft enough that he wanted now to know more. All power and empathy, muscle and soft blonde hair. On Raleigh's other side was Mako, and he wanted the chance to fix that. Wanted to remember the people they had been when they danced on the beach all those years ago. Tendo was on Chuck's other side, ready to manage the cancellation in a jacket, button down, and burgundy bowtie. They just might make it out of this after all.

* * *

The water was lit up with lava and fire and the sirens of the jeagers.

"We can clear a path for the lady," said Pentacost. The lights were scarlet around them. That signal everyone knows from childhood, red light stop. So why were they still going?

"My dad always said, if you have a chance, take it."

And then he's being shoved into an escape pod and the last thing he sees is the inside of Stacker's mouth hollering

"PUSH THE BUTTON!"

Of course the PPDC puts a fucking red button on its escape pods. Of. Fucking. Course.

* * *

The first thing he sees, when he can blink his eyes open for a second, is Mako's mouth, more specifically, the underside of her bottom lip. She is kneeling over him in his pod, and the lingering feeling of pressure on his lips and chest tell him she has been giving him CPR, but he can't find a way to tell her yet that it worked, since he hears before he can speak.

"I can't tell, I can't tell," she is yelling, facing someone behind his head, and then Beckett's voice, "Let me give it a shot, I have bigger lungs."

There's a lot of shuffling going on and then an unfamiliar set of lips is on his pushing in air while Mako pumps on his chest and with that combination how can a guy not come back more fully to consciousness?

There are two fingers on the side of his neck and Raleigh screams "I've got him!" over his shoulder to Mako just as Chuck finds his voice.

"There's no reason to scream old man," he grumbles, his voice a little scratchy. Raleigh laughs and twists back to face him.

Raleigh's hair is a mess, his face is a pale, and his eyes are bloodshot, but he's alive, all three of them are alive and Raleigh raises his eyebrows to ask if there's a chance because they both know Mako won't and Chuck has to shake his head no.

The air is loud with choppers as the three of them sit together on Chuck's pod and wait for the world to rescue them back.


End file.
